For centuries, the oracle has been imagined as a passive conduit—a woman in a trance, a seer overcome by visions, a mouthpiece through which a vast and ineffable divine (usually prefigured as masculine) speaks. The oracle is often revered but removed, a figure who surrenders to the will of forces beyond her control. She does not shape the prophecy; she merely delivers it.

But this is an incomplete story. And it is one that no longer holds.

Because to channel is not to be erased. 

To be a medium is not to dissolve into something else.

To be an oracle is not to be filled like an empty vessel.

The truth is far stranger. Far wilder.

Not a Receiver, but a Frequency

There is a persistent canard that oracles are simply receivers—that they pick up transmissions like a radio tuned to the right station. That the message exists somewhere else, fully formed, waiting for a worthy body to deliver it.

But the ones who know—the real seers, the real translators of the unseen— will tell you this is not how it works.

Because the oracle is not just a receiver. The oracle is the frequency itself.

What moves through you is not separate from you. It is not a foreign voice whispering into your ear, dictating truths that do not belong to you. It is your own resonance, your own being, vibrating in a way that allows the liminal to take form.

You are not just a listener. You are a summoner.  You are a translator of what you have already known, in the part of you that remembers before memory.

The world tells you that the unseen must come from elsewhere—from a god, from a spirit, from an external source.

But the world is wrong.

Because what comes is not bestowed. It is evoked. It is embodied.

You are not an empty vessel waiting to be filled.

You are a river with its own current.

You are the flood that carves its own path, and the tide that answers only to the cosmic body that governs it.

To Channel Is to Speak in Your Own Tongue

It’s another lie that to channel is to become neutral. That to speak prophecy means to step aside, to let something other take over, to become a pure, untouched conduit through which the message flows unimpeded.

But the truth is that nothing comes through you without passing through your own tongue, your own imagery, your own rhythm.

This is why oracles do not all speak in the same voice.

This is why the language of the unseen is shaped by the one who speaks it.

The words that come to you carry the cadence of your own being.

The images that arise draw from the wellspring of your own knowing.

The prophecy is woven from your own resonance.

You do not vanish in the act of receiving. You transmute what comes. You shape it. You give it form in a way that only you can.

To be an oracle is not to disappear. It is to become more fully yourself, to recognize that what is moving through you is not separate from you. It is to stop questioning whether it is real and start asking: What will I do with what I have been given?

The Oracle of This Time Must Refuse the Pedestal

There is another reason people misunderstand the oracle: They want her to be a fixed point in a firmament that is constantly in flux.

The world fears the ones who do not stay in place. The ones who move between, who come and go, who refuse pinned to a singular role. The world wants the oracle to be static, enshrined, trapped in the shape of a teacher, a guide, an authority.

But the oracle does not belong on a pedestal.  The pedestal is a cage, not an honor.  The moment you are enshrined, you are contained. 

This is why the true oracle of today must refuse the static role. She must be fluid. She must be unfixed. She must be the fire that moves, not the idol that is worshipped. She must refuse to be the thing that others hold onto in place of their own remembering.

Because the oracle’s purpose is not to be followed—it is to awaken. Not to be worshipped—but to ignite something in others that cannot be extinguished.

The oracle of this time does not seek disciples. She does not seek to be a figurehead, a guru, a singular authority. She is here to scatter the fire like glowing seeds. To whisper to others, “You, too, can speak with the unseen.”  

To remind the world, "You were never meant to be led. You were meant to remember."

What It Means to Be a Medium Now

So, what does it mean to be a medium, a channel, an oracle in this era?

It means you are not a mouthpiece.
It means you are not a servant of something outside yourself.
It means you do not exist to be understood, validated, or made legible.

It means you stand at the crossroads and translate the wind. 

It means you let the river of the unseen move through you—not as something foreign, but as something that has always belonged to you.

It means you trust what comes, knowing it is not separate from you, knowing that what rises in you is the shape of your own frequency speaking back.

And above all—it means you refuse to be tethered.

For the oracle who stands still becomes a monument, not a mouthpiece.

The channel that seeks permanence forgets it was always meant to be a threshold.

To be an oracle today is not to carry answers in cupped hands, but to dance in the open palms of the questions—to let the mystery move through you,
unbound, unnamed, unafraid.

It is to let the mystery breathe through you and give it form—not as doctrine, not as certainty, but as a pulsing luminosity in the darkness, as queerness, as fluidity, as the wild beast that refuses to be caged.It is to whisper to those who are waiting: “You were always meant to hear this.
You were always meant to remember.”

This is a talk I recently gave to one of the alumni groups for the incredible Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program, which I completed in 2023. The topic of loneliness is one I ponder fairly frequently, being prone to spells of it that I can only describe as mental vertigo. But, as the talk demonstrates, there is a special quality within loneliness that we can learn to alchemize, and that can offer us unexpected paths to the connection we all want and deserve.

Clear light. Pure light. Rainbow light. The light that surpasses cognition. The light that disavows duality. The light that is not separate from darkness. How do we walk toward it? How do we recognize it? How does it change the way we see-hear-feel-think-sense-know?

Contemplate your typical associations with light. Are they of the “spiritual” garden variety? Do you use or routinely hear terms such as “love and light”? Do you see yourself as being of the light, or does that feel too abstract or out of context to you? Think about the necessity of light. Think about your own periods of “seeing the light.” Do you retreat from cosmic light, as described in the meditation? Or do you move toward it and recognize your identity within it? Let all of your thoughts coalesce before you move on to the writing exercise.

Writing Prompt: Respond to the following questions:

How does cosmic light express itself in me?

What is the source of my own light?

How does it manifest?

What does it feel like?

Alternatively, write your story of cosmic light. Imagine the moment you came into existence as you. Imagine that the cosmic light itself had a message for you. What was it?

Please enjoy this 9-minute meditation on self-love, inspired by Tara Well’s superb book, Mirror Meditation: The Power of Neuroscience and Self-Reflection to Overcome Criticism, Gain Confidence, and See Yourself with Compassion. Musical accompaniment, as always, is provided by my beloved, Shawn Feeney (shawnfeeney.com, https://www.instagram.com/shawnfeeney).

Please enjoy this month’s meditation on deeply listening and reattuning to ourselves. It includes sonic accompaniment from my husband, Shawn Feeney (website: shawnfeeney.com; Instagram: @shawnfeeney). I’m thrilled to share that we’ll be collaborating together on a series of monthly meditative livestreams, retreats, and other events—more to come in future newsletters.